Progress Toward a Multiracial Nation

By the middle of this century, people of color will make up the majority in the United States,
a culmination of this country’s long and often-violent struggle with its multiracial identity.
But alongside assorted celebrated “firsts,” landmark court cases such as Brown v. Board of
Education, and legendary protests such as the March on Washington, are lesser-known
political, social, and cultural milestones that have gradually marked the way.

1947: The 9th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals declares the segregation of Mexican and Mexican American students unconstitutional in Mendez v. Westminster. The California case is considered a precursor to the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

1965: Civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., eventually lead to passage of National Voting Rights Act. A police assault halts the first march of 600 people; a few weeks later, 25,000 march to the state capitol where Martin Luther King Jr. addresses the crowd.

2005: U.S. Senate formally apologizes for its failure to enact an anti-lynching law. Historically, southern senators blocked more than 200 such bills. 3,437 African Americans were lynched from 1880 to 1951.

2006: Hundreds of thousands boycott work and school to participate in Day Without Immigrants, demonstrating the contributions of immigrants to everyday society.

2007: Foreign-born workers make up almost 16 percent of the U.S. labor force, the highest proportion since 1920.